Thanks for your input Jacy. That is my general feeling as well. I have been leaning more towards going, the bad just keeps lingering in the back of my mind. If this was just one attack, it mind be an easier decision. But given the fact they attacked New Dehli and Jaipur in the past couple of months as well makes me wonder if these attacks are becoming less an isolated incident and more of a new emerging pattern.

That is a good article. My in-laws are Kashmiri Hindus and my father-in-law received his education at the University of Mumbai (or Mumbai University, not sure which it is) so I am well aware of the problem, unfortunately my family has had to deal with it their entire lives. The one thing about this article is that it basically like calling the terrorists' bluff. I am not sure how I feel about that . . .

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to New Delhi Wednesday, ostensibly to deliver US condolences for the 173 people killed in the terrorist attacks that rocked Mumbai last week and express solidarity with the people of India. This will likely be among the last major international initiatives launched by Rice, whose role in foisting the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan on the American people and implementing the US programs of torture and extraordinary rendition makes her an appropriate target for a war crimes indictment. In the Middle East — where she is infamous for hailing the 2006 Israeli war that killed thousands of Lebanese civilians as the "birth pangs" of peace — protesters have frequently portrayed the American secretary of state as a vampire, her fangs dripping in blood. This image serves as a fitting metaphor for her current foray into South Asia, where she is spearheading an attempt by Washington to exploit the blood of the innocent victims in Mumbai to promote the so-called "global war on terrorism" through which Washington pursues its geostrategic interests.

Speaking in New Delhi, Rice pointedly applied pressure on Pakistan, declaring that its government must "act with resolve and urgency and cooperate fully and transparently." For its part, Pakistan has condemned the terror attacks and denied any involvement by its state agencies. Rice suggested a nonexistent link between Al Qaeda and the Mumbai attacks, declaring, "This is clearly the kind of terror in which Al Qaeda participates." She was later forced to backtrack on the remark, but still declared that those who attacked India's commercial capital and those blamed for the 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington "move in the same circles." If there is a connection between the Mumbai attacks and those of September 11 it is to be found in the American response. Seven months after the planes flew into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Rice described those tragic events as "an enormous opportunity" to "create a new balance of power." Washington now sees a similar opportunity arising from the carnage in India to pursue its interests in South Asia. While Rice was in New Delhi, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, was in Islamabad, exerting pressure on Pakistan's eight-month-old civilian government and on the country's military commanders.

Mullen echoed Rice's statements in New Delhi, calling on the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to "investigate aggressively any and all possible ties to groups based in Pakistan." The admiral went further, however, declaring that the Pakistani government had "to take more, and more concerted, action against militant extremists elsewhere in the country." This last reference was clearly a demand that the Pakistani military intensify its operations in Waziristan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and other territories bordering Afghanistan, which have provided support to Afghan forces battling against the seven-year-old US occupation. The American military has carried out its own repeated attacks in the area, killing Pakistani civilians in missile strikes as well as commando assaults. It is apparent that Washington sees in the Mumbai events an opportunity to bully Pakistan into more effectively doing its bidding in support of the war in Afghanistan, or, should that fail, to justify the escalation of its own intervention.

Significant in this regard was a column published in the Washington Post Tuesday by Robert Kagan, a leading proponent of the Iraq war with close ties to the Bush administration. Kagan called for forming an international force to invade Pakistan and "root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas." In arguing for such a military intervention, Kagan declared that it "would be useful for the United States, Europe and other nations to begin establishing the principle that Pakistan and other states that harbor terrorists should not take their sovereignty for granted. In the 21st century, sovereign rights need to be earned." Such a move "to internationalize the response" to the Mumbai attack, Kagan argues, "would have the advantage of preventing a direct military confrontation between India and Pakistan." Finally, he asserts that this kind of intervention is necessary because the US has the "obligation to demonstrate to the Indian people that we take attacks on them as seriously as we take attacks on ourselves."

Thus, the attempt to connect 9/11 with Mumbai and the full implications of this amalgam are spelled out quite clearly. As with the attacks of 2001, the terrorist acts in India are seen as the pretext for a new war of aggression and justification for riding roughshod over the sovereignty of a historically oppressed nation. The military confrontation between India and Pakistan against which Kagan warns has been made all the more probable by US imperialism's interventions in the region. For US strategic interests, such a war poses a serious threat in that Pakistan would likely withdraw troops it now has deployed on its western border with Afghanistan and move them east towards India, leaving the border region and the key lines of supply for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan unprotected. For humanity, such a war poses the danger of a nuclear conflagration and the deaths of millions. This crisis is unfolding barely six weeks before Barack Obama is to be sworn in as the next president of the United States. Here as elsewhere, there are indications that a "seamless transition" can be anticipated. Obama has repeatedly indicated that a top priority of his administration will be the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, along with its extension into Pakistan itself. At his press conference last Monday introducing his national security team, Obama fully embraced the language of the "war on terrorism," indicating that he will use similar cynical justifications for US aggression as those employed under George W. Bush.

[...] whose role in foisting the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan on the American people and implementing the US programs of torture and extraordinary rendition makes her an appropriate target for a war crimes indictment.[...]

finally made it to the European court of Human Rights - Obama administration should own up to the truth as first rendition case related to "war on terror" reaches European Court of Human Rights. By taking Khaled El-Masri's case to the European Court of Human Rights, the Open Society Justice Initiative is seeking to ensure that his rights, and his humanity, are finally vindicated. It is time that the Obama administration act to remedy the terrible injustice done to him. It should start by owning up to the truth.

[...] whose role in foisting the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan on the American people and implementing the US programs of torture and extraordinary rendition makes her an appropriate target for a war crimes indictment.[...]

finally made it to the European court of Human Rights - Obama administration should own up to the truth as first rendition case related to "war on terror" reaches European Court of Human Rights. By taking Khaled El-Masri's case to the European Court of Human Rights, the Open Society Justice Initiative is seeking to ensure that his rights, and his humanity, are finally vindicated. It is time that the Obama administration act to remedy the terrible injustice done to him. It should start by owning up to the truth.

Are you being sarcastic, decide? Excuse my ignorance but I really cannot tell!

[...] whose role in foisting the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan on the American people and implementing the US programs of torture and extraordinary rendition makes her an appropriate target for a war crimes indictment.[...]

finally made it to the European court of Human Rights - Obama administration should own up to the truth as first rendition case related to "war on terror" reaches European Court of Human Rights. By taking Khaled El-Masri's case to the European Court of Human Rights, the Open Society Justice Initiative is seeking to ensure that his rights, and his humanity, are finally vindicated. It is time that the Obama administration act to remedy the terrible injustice done to him. It should start by owning up to the truth.

There is a movie based on the true story of Khalid El-Masri who was mistaken for Khalid al-Masri.

The British journalist Stephen Grey, in a new book, "Ghost Plane," refers to documents obtained by Spanish law-enforcement officials, along with flight logs, which indicate that international flight planners provided essential logistical support for many of the C.I.A.'s renditions, including that of Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman who was apparently mistaken for an Al Qaeda suspect with a similar name, in January of 2004. Masri, who is a Muslim, was arrested at the border while crossing from Serbia into Macedonia by bus. He has alleged in court papers that Macedonian authorities turned him over to a C.I.A. rendition team. Then, he said, masked figures stripped him naked, shackled him, and led him onto a Boeing 737 business jet. From Skopje, Macedonia, the 737 flew to Baghdad, where it had military clearance to land, and then on to Kabul. On board, Masri has said, he was chained to the floor and injected with sedatives. After landing, he was put in the trunk of a car and driven to a building where he was placed in a dank cell. He spent the next 4 months there, under interrogation. Masri was released in May, 2004, on the orders of Condoleezza Rice, then the national-security adviser, after she learned that he had mistakenly been identified as a terrorism suspect.